Oregon AFL-CIO E-Board Passes Resolution Condemning OE Local 701

On July 29, 2011, the Oregon AFL-CIO Executive Board passed the following:

Resolution condemning Operating Engineers Local 701 for scabbing at the Port of Longview

Whereas, the purpose of a labor union is to leverage the collective power of workers to improve and protect the working conditions and standard of living of working men and women; and

Whereas, the strength of each union and the union movement as a whole depends on the unity of all of the members therein; and

Whereas, West Coast dockworkers marched by the thousands and sometimes died at the hands of law enforcement in 1934 in their fight to form the union known today as the International Longshore and Warehouse Union; and

Whereas, the ILWU has worked in all Northwest grain export terminals since that bloody beginning and has spent decades honing its safety procedures, working conditions, wages and benefits with the employer; and

Whereas, EGT Development, a joint venture of multinational corporations Bunge, Itochu and STX Pan Ocean agreed to hire union longshoremen when accepting millions in taxpayer funds to build a massive grain exporting terminal at the Port of Longview and is now trying to avoid following its contract with regards to labor; and

Whereas, longshoremen and their supporters are being wrongfully arrested by the hundreds in their defense of this lifetime jurisdiction from EGT’s attacks, and have gained public support in the process; and

Whereas, the only way that EGT could neutralize this public demand to honor its agreement to hire union ILWU longshoremen was to find another union to collude with the employer to create window dressing to trick people into thinking the union issue had been resolved; and

Whereas, EGT found said willingness to undermine ILWU longshore standards among the leadership of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 701; and

Whereas, OE Local 701 has not only agreed to work in collusion with the employer to scab on the docks at Longview but has also sided with the multinational, union-busting employer in the media against the ILWU longshore collective actions at the Port of Longview; and

Be it resolved that the Oregon AFL-CIO state federation Executive Board and its local union affiliates condemn in the strongest way possible the scab labor actions of OE Local 701; and further,

Be it resolved that the Oregon AFL-CIO state federation send a letter to OE Local 701 demanding that Local 701 immediately cease and desist from allowing its members to displace ILWU longshoremen at the EGT facility in the Port of Longview; and finally,

Be it resolved that the Oregon AFL-CIO publicize this resolution and its opposition to Local 701’s actions on its web site’s front page and as the headline issue in its Weekly Update.